Welcome back and thank you for returning to my summer internship blog, to read about what I have been busy with in week 2. If you have been following along you would have noticed that last week’s post was very long and broad detailing my day-to-day tasks. I thought that laying the groundwork in the week 1 post would be beneficial to the rest of the blog, as now I will attempt to dive deeper into some topics, while still explaining what my week was like. I hope you enjoy!
As a quick intro, this week was very heavily centered on Maine state tick surveillance. I went into detail last week on how exactly I have been participating in this, but in case you may have forgot, I have been flagging for ticks! In fact I was fortunate enough to go into the field flagging on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Each of these days I visited different sites and on Thursday I made it a double effort. This week I went to Runaround Pond in Durham, ME, Wells Reserve in Wells, ME, Range Pond in Poland, ME, and finally Gregory Sanborn Wilderness Management Area (formerly known and will be referred to as Brownfield Bog WMA) in Brownfield, ME. Each of these sites are very unique and have had different levels of success.
Runaround Pond – 6/10
Although this was only my second time at this site, it has quickly became one of my favorites. This site has a very accessible trail that is open to the public and often has many people walking by as I flag. There is a 965-meter looping trail that follows along the pond, a mixed-forest, and even a swimming location where the city maintains rope swings. It is fairly common in my experience to see people fishing in the pond or swimming further down the trail in Runaround Brook. On this day, I flagged for 2 hours, equating to 3,379 meters, finding about 17 ticks. Amongst these ticks I found 2 Ixodes scapularis (deer tick) nymphs, plenty of I.s. adults, and some Dermacentor variablis (dog tick) adults. The conditions on Monday were pretty good for findings ticks as it was 68° F, the wind was blowing at 5 mph, the soil was dry, and the humidity was only at 60%. Overall this was a very successful day, as I found 2 nymphs and found plenty of female I.s. ticks.
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| Waterfall at Runaround Pond, Durham, Androscoggin County, ME |
Wells Reserve – 6/12
This was my first time visiting the Wells Reserve, located in York County. This site is a long-term research location for the Vector-Borne Disease Lab, where other projects often exist at. If everything goes the way it currently looks, next week you may be reading about my first time assisting with bird-banding, as the lab looks for ticks traveling on exotic birds that are migrating into Maine. But, since I have not participated in that yet, I’ll get back to the topic of state surveillance.
This site is very large and there were specific guidelines to only flag in certain areas. Some trails at the Wells Reserve as used for other projects such as a Powassan Virus study, so I was restricted to the Muskie and Pilger trails. On this day, I flagged for an hour and 10 minutes, for 2,526 meters, and too many ticks to count in the field. I have been told that if surveillance is completed at a location for about an hour, you will have a general understanding of the tick questing activity that day. If you continue on longer you may continue at the same rate, but it might not always be necessary. With that being said, I was finding D.v. ticks at an exhausting rate. I mentioned this is my week one post, but at this point, American Dog Ticks are not a medically important vector, and in turn are not directly being sent to the CDC for testing. They will all be tested at one point or another, but while we are in a high point for Deer Tick’s and nymph especially, our lab especially wants to collect I.s. ticks. I decided that a little over an hour was good enough for the day considering what I was collecting and hope that my next visit here would have a little better success.
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| Path on Muskie Trail, Wells Reserve, Wells, York County, ME |
Range Pond and Brownfield Bog WMA – 6/13
My most time intensive surveillance day to this point came on Thursday. I went to the counties of Androscoggin and Oxford where the sites flagged at were 2 hours apart. From where I live in Southern Maine, the drive was about an hour to each location, so I thought that in order to make use of my 3 hours driving on this day, I would spend at least 2 hours flagging at each site.
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| Range Pond, Poland, Androscoggin County, ME |
I started the day at Range Pond, making this my second time visiting. This site is also one of my favorites so far, as there is tons of side trails that branch off of the main path. Since this is a State Park, the paths are very well kept and likewise to Runaround, there is often hikers walking along with me as I am working. For this effort, I spent 2 hours and 10 minutes walking along the trails, for 5,632 meters and about 5 ticks. I have not had a chance to identify these ticks yet, but I do know for a fact that I did not find any nymphs. The conditions on this morning were not great, it was 68° F, 2 mph winds, clear sky’s, and 77% humidity. Now you may be wondering, why would I say that it was poor conditions? Well, the soil was incredibly wet. So wet in fact that before I flagged later in the day at Brownfield, I switched to a new, dry, flag. When the leaf litter and ground is wet, ticks are less likely to be questing, and so they are not looking to grab hold to my flag, or people walking along. It is actually a fairly safe time for those hiking and taking recreational walks through the woods, but not the best for surveillance. Despite that, I was happy that the effort did not go to waste, and I was able to collect a few female I.s. ticks.
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| Brownfield Bog WMA, Brownfield, Oxford County, ME |
In a turn of events, the weather was much better in Brownfield. It was 75° F, 5 mph winds, clear and sunny, and 50% humid. By the measures I have presented, it should have been likely to have success finding ticks. But in reality, there are some sites that have a higher tick activity than others. I went out to this site with two other members of the lab because, this site generally does not have the most activity. This isn’t as bad as it may seem. I alluded to it in my first post that, all data is good data. Having an underperforming site, gives insight into how well that county is doing compared to others. So for that reason, it is almost equally important to survey the sites that do not produce the number of ticks as a site like the Wells Reserve. Brownfield is very rural and actually is the first location I have been to that is very crudely laid out. I walked along old logging trails that are rarely traveled, and so it felt as though I was really “in the forest”. I flagged for 2 hours and 5 minutes covering 5,326 meters weaving my way throughout the vague paths. Out of the 10 ticks that I found, the majority were female and male I.s. ticks, but 0 nymphs. Overall, at the end of Thursday I was pretty exhausted, but I was happy that I was able to spend 4 hours of my day walking in the woods and seeing new places that I have never been to before. These first 2 weeks have been very rewarding in that way, bringing myself closer to nature, and sparking my interests to the world around me.
Additionally...
On Monday I was asked and happily accepted an opportunity to help survey and measure out transects for a project focused on Powassan Virus, in Cape Elizabeth, ME. In doing so, I helped measure out 100 meter transects with every 10 meters marked with tape. In the procedure for flagging these designated paths, 10 meters is flagged at a time, the flag is assessed, information is documented, and then the process is continued until the 100 meters has been passed over. While I will not be directly working on this project, and therefore cannot provide specifics, I thought it was a nice opportunity to assist in the surveying and implementation of a new research location.
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| Measuring 10 meters at Fire Pond, Cape Elizabeth, York County, ME |
While this internship has been academically rooting in teaching myself all about vector-borne diseases, I have also had opportunities to hear from other experts that work at MHIR. On Wednesday I was able to attend to presentations, one talking about Adipose Biology and Insulin Resistance, and another research for helping patients progress downstream to receiving care. Both of these were very interesting, and I could create an entire post on, but really interested me was the concept of figuring out how to break past barriers to help patients receive the care they need. These barriers could be anything from financial constraints to how far they may need to drive to meet with a specialist. Identifying these factors in the patient care process can help find solutions like electronic-consultations or school-based visits, that in turn make it easier for children, parents, working adults, etc., to receive the proper care they deserve. While I am an academic intern at MHIR I have been invited to these events almost weekly, and I plan to attend as many as I can as I think they are exceptional opportunities to develop a well-rounded education in public health and health in general.
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| Looking at ticks under a microscope |
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| Sorting identified mosquitos by species |
I hope that you all enjoyed my second post and a little bit of a different style, explaining what each of the sites is really like. I want to continue to keep these posts informative and fresh week-to-week as I dive deeper and deeper into what it has been like to be an intern at a vector-borne disease laboratory! On the sides are some photos of activities that didn't make it into my post this week but I thought were interesting to share.
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